Caged animals will often overturn, contaminate or damage a water dish. To avoid these problems, it is a common practice to use a water bottle which is attached to the outside of the cage and which has a drinking tube that extends a short distance into the cage. Prior water dispensers of this type are themselves subject to certain problems.
The traditional water dispenser includes a bottle which is inverted to locate the mouth of the bottle at the underside of the dispenser. The bottle is closed with a cap or cork and an angled drinking tube extends down through the cap or cork and then into the cage. A wire hanger extends around the bottle and suspends it from the wall of the cage.
The walls of many cages are formed of some kind of mesh which provides openings through which the animal can gnaw and/or claw the water bottle. This can damage the water dispenser to the extent that it becomes unusable. Glass bottles are resistant to that kind of damage but are breakable and are more costly than bottles formed of other materials such as various plastics.
Conventional water bottles have small mouths that are situated at one end of the longest dimension of the bottle. This complicates cleaning of the bottle. The conventional hanger wire or strap does not provide a positive fastening of the bottle to the cage. In some configurations, the hanger may easily be shifted and cause an undesired release of the bottle. In other instances the hanger complicates installation and removal of the bottle. When scaled up to larger sizes, the conventional water bottle can be difficult to grip with one hand while the other hand is being used to install or remove the closure.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems discussed above.